Carrot Farm/Aquatic Pets

The Carrot Farm exists on a sloping, hilly piece of land by a river, surrounded on the other three sides by forest.

If you are of a mind, you can rent a plot of land, buy your seeds from the Carrot Farm, and try your luck. Different sections of the farm have better or worse soil, or sunlight, so the quality of the carrots varies pretty widely. All of the different farmers are there, hawking their goods.

One of the more successful farmers was selling, in addition to carrots, carrot cake cupcakes with icing, he informed me, also made entirely from carrots. I said, no thanks.

I was more interested in the two huge aquariums that comprised one of the long sides of his rectangular stall. They were both full of all kinds of sea creatures. Cephalopods, Ammonites, tiny metallic sea-horses, and many other things I couldn't identify. All cavorting around in a realistic undersea environment.

A hand-made sign hung above and between the tanks. It read, "AQUATIC PETS for sale".

A long, sleek creature, like a hybrid of seal and cetacean, swam out of a pseudo-coral formation and regarded me, through the glass. It was man-shaped, with flipper-like limbs, a whiskery face, and expressive black eyes.

Presently, a smaller creature of the same species appeared in the left-hand tank. It was then that they both began to communicate with me. 

"Help us," they reverberated in watery near-speech, "let us out."

* * *

The farmer was counting money.

"Those creatures-- you've got to get them out of there!"

"They're just animals."

"But-- they can talk! they can think! They're not pets!"

The farmer sighed and looked up, "They're my parents."

"What?"

"They can't survive on land. And I've got to keep them separate. Otherwise they'll mate and we'll just have more people like me walking around. I provide a suitable aquatic environment and plenty of fish-flavored flakes for them to eat, and that's all the law stipulates. If you've got a problem with how I take care of my parents, I suggest you take it up with Social Services, but they won't tell you any different."

There wasn't anything I could do. And that was the story of the Carrot Farm.